Wow, it’s my birthday already. Happy Birthday…to me!
And few things make me happier than when I see my own Plaxo e-cards sent to me on my birthday. Some of you can guess why…
Here is a selection of some of them.
[After the jump.]
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Category: about me
Pure Vanity.
Mark and me
I read today that Mark is moved up to San Francisco.
Cool.
Oh and he’s going to be working at the same company as me.
Cool.
Did you know the only project we worked on together at Plaxo was Lunch 2.0?
“This is going to be legen… wait for it …DARY!”
First view of first Lunch 2.0
Santa Clara, California
Santa Clara, California
Nikon D70, Nikkor 12-24mm f/4G
f/7.1 at 1/125 second, 12mm (18mm), iso 200
The first Lunch 2.0: Sneaking into Yahoo! Mission College Campus.
Way to “PA”
Me: I mean I’m pretty shy—oh, don’t laugh, it’s true. Internally, I have to really force myself to talk to a new person. I just want to crawl into my hole.
H—: But I think you like to meet people.
Me: Especially at Caltech. You talk to a girl there are only two possibilities: 1) You talk to her with four other guys talking to her; or, 2) you talk to her for like ten seconds before four other guys come around to talk to her.
H—: Hahah. Well, you know what they say… “The odds are good when the goods are odd.”
Me: “The odds are good when the goods are odd?” Sounds like a poster advocating a Prince Albert.
Barcamp Sacramento Tomorrow
Reminder, I’ll be at BarCamp Sacramento tomorrow.
BarCamp is an unconference (it is free to attend, users can give talks at will). I’ll do my Underpants Gnomes talk. And I can do an impromptu Rails on Ruby talk. 🙂
Unconferences are great. We should support more. It’s sort of like Lunch 2.0 only not with breakfast and dinner also.
Hope to see you there.
Memorial Day in Fisherman’s Wharf
The loud pounding distortion of a hip hop baseline pushed through way too tiny speakers caused me to look behind as I crossed the street. I saw the car and who was inside and then did a double take. Inside the rice burner was a middle-aged white guy with a bandana that could pass for Steve Carell.
I had to share this “life imitates art” moment with someone so I called Dave Kellogg. We started to talk about Lunch 2.0 as I headed toward In-N-Out Burger for dinner. Cat Guy passed me on his bicycle mumbling something about “cat lovers only.” I turned the corner and continued to talk with Dave. We were on the subject of Guy Kawasaki.
“RAAAARRHHHHHRRRRGGGGG!!!”
I almost jumped out of my jeans. A crowd of tourists were in a semicircle around me, laughing. “Shit, Dave, Bush Man1 got me! Hold on, I have to give him a buck.”
I love San Francisco.
Pier 39
Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco, California
Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco, California
Nikon D200, Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G VR
1/80 sec @ f/13, iso 100, 18mm (27mm)
1 Just in case you don’t know, most of the panhandlers in the Fisherman’s Wharf area have a shtick. Bush Man squats behind two branches he holds in front of him and scares unsuspecting tourists for money. He also makes passing references to his blackness if the tourists are white (which they invariably are). I was actually thinking yesterday that I hadn’t seen Bush Man in a while. I dropped some money in, did the boxer greet thing with him, and went about my way.
Discussion and Democracy
“…our democracy is in danger of being hollowed out. In order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans must resolve to repair the systemic decay of the public forum. We must create new ways to engage in a genuine and not manipulative conversation about our future…Americans in both parties should insist on the re-establishment of respect for the rule of reason.”
—Al Gore, from The Assault of Reason in Time Magazine
I started this blog after the 2004 election with a purpose to “write to create context for another to think.”
Whether it is morals, politics, technology and industry, or every day life, each of us has both a right and obligation to participate on the public forum. Thank you, the reader, for taking some of your time to be a part of this conversation.
Happy B-day Adam
EVE online
Since I was working on a web-tool to detect and clean HTML embed codes, Firefox was experiencing some intermittent crashing. Today I loaded up my page in Safari, seeing the site for the first time in weeks without my banner ad blocker:
The banner ad is for Eve Online which is a MMORPG imported from Korea. Someone I know just accepted a job for a similar company so this is a big shout-out to you (you know who you are).
BTW, Afro Samurai did a takeover a couple weeks ago. I decided to change my tagged profile theme to the promo. It’s a pity that I don’t get cable and this isn’t on iTunes, because it looks like an interesting show.
(I had cable until yesterday, but didn’t know it since I never connected it. I found out today when they left a note on my door saying they cut it.)
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Plaxo is evil. Plaxo is spam.
Disclaimer: I worked as an engineer at Plaxo a long time ago (in internet years… in human years it was five months ago).
In October of last year, an engineering colleague asked me about this whole “Plaxo is evil. Plaxo is spam” thing. At the time I went in to a long boring lecture about Plaxo and privacy/security. (I don’t need to go into it here, you can read this to get a taste.)
After sitting through it, he asked me this simple question: “If you didn’t work for Plaxo, would you use it?”
I answered, “I’ll do you one better. I’m not going to be working for Plaxo much longer, and I’ll continue to use it after I leave.”
“Good enough for me.”
[The power of connections. The power of search. After the jump]Continue reading
Barcamp Sacramento
Adam Kalsey and Scott Hildebrand of SacStarts are holding a BarCamp in Sacramento on June 2nd and 3rd.
BarCamp is a conference where the participants are the speakers. Show up, sign up to give a session, and get going. There’s lots of networking in the halls, food, great conversations, and you’ll even learn a thing or two.
I love the price (free) 🙂 I’ll be there, maybe you should also. Maybe I’ll dig up an old talk or or test drive a new one (no doubt there will be some PHP involved in mine).
Show your support for the Web people a little further inland and signup!